There is a Sukkot—the Feast of Tabernacles—in the Bible that has never happened yet. That is an extraordinary thought when you live in Israel, because Sukkot is anything but theoretical here. Every year, almost overnight, sukkot begin appearing everywhere—on balconies, beside apartment buildings, in gardens, squeezed into corners that hardly seem large enough to hold one. Children carry decorations home. Neighbors build walls and lay branches overhead. Tables and plastic chairs are dragged outside, and for seven days an ancient biblical feast moves right into the middle of ordinary Israeli life. More than three thousand years after God commanded Israel to keep Sukkot, we are still doing it.
And yet Scripture tells us that the story of this feast is not finished.
Zechariah takes us forward to another Sukkot and gives us an astonishing picture: people from the nations are coming to Jerusalem, not as tourists and not merely to watch Israel celebrate. They are coming to worship the King:
“Everyone who is left of all the nations… shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles”
Zechariah 14:16
Think about that. The sukkah being built outside an Israeli apartment today carries the memory of the wilderness—but it also points toward a future the world has never seen. Sukkot remembers where we have been while pointing us toward the King who is coming.
Perhaps that is why there is something so powerful about sitting inside a sukkah. They are not impressive buildings. You hear the neighbors. Someone is passing food across a table that barely fits. A child knocks into a decoration. The evening air comes through the walls. Above you are branches instead of a permanent roof. We decorate these temporary little spaces, fill them with conversation and laughter, and then, only days later, take the whole thing apart. The sukkah was never meant to last.
And in its own quiet way, it reminds us that much of what feels permanent in our lives isn’t permanent either.
Our plans change. Circumstances change. Things we worked hard to build can look very different a year later. We spend enormous amounts of energy trying to make life secure, predictable and controllable, while sitting beneath a roof that practically announces the opposite. Then Zechariah lifts our eyes toward something that will remain: a Kingdom that will not be dismantled when the feast is over, and a King whose authority will not shift with circumstances, governments or generations.
This is where prophecy becomes much more than an interesting picture of the future. It becomes personal. It is possible to believe that Yeshua will one day reign as King while still keeping small territories of our own lives off limits to Him. We can speak eagerly about His coming Kingdom and still say, in a hundred quiet ways, not here. Not this decision. Not this relationship. Not this part of my future. We can spend so much time asking when prophecy will be fulfilled and how everything will unfold that we miss the question it places directly in front of us: If Yeshua is the coming King, is He already King here?
Moses said of Sukkot,
“Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the Lord your God”
Deuteronomy 16:15
To the Lord. Those few words bring us back to the heart of it. Before the meals and traditions, before the family gatherings and everything we enjoy about these days, the feast belongs to Him. And perhaps this Sukkot there is something we need to place before Him again. A decision we have been protecting. A future we have been trying to arrange ourselves. A situation we cannot control but haven’t quite surrendered either. We do not have to wait for the Kingdom Zechariah describes before we bow to the King.
In a few days, something very ordinary will happen all over Israel. The meals will end. The decorations will come down. Branches will be carried away and balconies will return to normal. Another Sukkot will be over. But there is one Sukkot still ahead of us.
One day, Zechariah’s words will no longer be something we read about. The nations will come to Jerusalem to worship the King, and Sukkot will no longer be pointing toward that day. We will be living in it.
Until then, every temporary sukkah asks us to look beyond what will pass away and remember what will remain. The King is coming. Let us make sure He already has His place in us.
“And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations… shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.”
Zechariah 14:16
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sukkot Sameach—Happy Feast of Tabernacles,
Pastor Israel Pochtar
